Coffee and Tea
by Fridgeworks
Summary: Alex is in love with coffee. After a chance encounter at a cafe and a mission at Brooklands, Alex chances on old 'friends' and finds that maybe there is more in the world to love than coffee. Rated for safety. Snake/Alex. Not too cheesy. All of age.
1. Coffee

This will be a slash (Or: gay/homosexual love for those of you not familiar with fanfiction slang), as was previously stated in the summary. If you did not read the summary and assume that this is not a slash and if you do not like said slash, then I cannot be held accountable. If you both did not read the summary and consecutively do not read this warning, then I have to say that I will be bewildered if you later flame me (Or: post hate mail for those of you not familiar with fanfiction slang once more) for writing something so wrong and sinful. I will also probably laugh at your expense instead of correcting my wrongs. Like this: Hohohohohohohoho.

Story's mostly finished, I had originally planned on having this be purely a oneshot, but then there actually grew something of a plot, and it got longer than I'd previously thought it'd be, so I had to retrace my steps and make chapters where there are nice scene cuts.

I do enjoy a good critique or perhaps a notice that I misspelled something (I will try to correct the wrong accordingly) as I do not have a beta-reader and don't really care about having one. But hey, you could also just say hi. A nice 'good day' will suffice as well...

Disclaimer: Alex Rider is not mine, Snake is not mine, nor is the rest of K-Unit, the Alex Rider series, nor any other affiliated plot device used in this fic. They are owned by Anthony Horowitz, who is, I might add, also not owned by me. I suppose, however, I could take credit for coming up with the civilian names of Eagle, Snake and Wolf. But, then again, who am I to lay such claim? *more hohoho-ing*

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><p>Alex didn't know when he'd begun drinking coffee regularly. He knew he'd gotten the taste for it after years and years of taste-testing Jack's, swearing to never again, then later returning.<p>

He couldn't remember when it was that he began neglecting the large assortment of teas in his cupboard or when it was that his teapot began to collect dust.

He just did.

It was an addiction that set him shivering and shaking if put off for later. Had him clutching a plain silver travel mug every moment of everyday, one he refilled anywhere he knew he could get a decent cuppa once it began to run high and dry.

When he looked at himself from someone else's point of view he would see a hopeless addict, sweating at the thought of a prolonged lapse of time to the next fix. He never thought that he could ever have such an affection for anything, or even anyone, as he did for coffee.

He was, perhaps not so surprisingly, incorrect in his assumption.

They met in a coffee shop Alex often frequented, a small little place that went by the name of 'Roosters Crow by Morning' where the coffee was both cheap and danced a merry tune on his taste buds.

The 20-year old spy was refilling his mug and buying his breakfast for the day, a ham and cheese croissant and a blueberry scone. He made to pay for his purchase with exact change, and was jostled by a passing teen, causing him to drop the coins he'd been carefully counting out as the idiot teenager continued on, unconcerned in that way that only teens could be.

Metallic clinks were barely heard over the din of the cafe as coins scattered and Alex cursed under his breath. Dropping to a crouch to hastily retrieve the lost money, he only registered the kindness of another when he stood after finding all that he could but not all that he'd lost.

Sighing and muttering an apology to the waiting cashier, Alex pulled out his wallet to fish out what would cover the rest of the cost.

A tap on the shoulder caught him off guard, but not so that he forgot to act the normal civilian, turning at the contact in a half flinch, a polite question in the arch of his eyebrows, he came face to face with a thin, kind-faced man, in his thirties perhaps.

"You dropped these." his outstretched hand held the last of the change Alex had dropped, and the spy took it gratefully, wondering for a second if maybe he'd met the man before. The Scottish accent set off twinges in his mind, he should know this man, he thought. But try as he might, Alex didn't.

Realizing he was staring at his helper in a manner that was only a little suspicious, Alex hastily ducked his head with a thanks and turned back to the cashier to finish paying, effectively putting the incident in that corner of the mind where memories were left to gather dust and could only hope in vain to be remembered.

It was later that day, as he finished some paperwork for a mission in Bangkok the week before, that Alex blinked.

And remembered.

His coffee mug fell with a thump to the floor, spilling precious caffeinated liquid, as he froze. An intern passing by his open door asked him if he was okay with genuine concern.

Alex shook his head softly, breaking out of his impersonation of a living statue, and murmured that he was fine and to 'please close the door if you will'. He bent and retrieved the mug, staring ruefully at the last vestiges of his addiction that had not escaped glazed ceramic and ignored the splotch of coffee on the short-haired carpet, once it left him coffee was lost to him.

Knocking back the last bit of coffee, Alex couldn't help the small quirk to his lips and soft snort of uncharacteristic laughter. "I really have to start seeing a therapist." he noted dryly to himself, grabbing the pot of coffee off a small electric heater by his desk, it stayed there during the day and went home with him at night, to refill his mug.

He added neither sugar nor cream and sipped the bitter drink like it was the nectar of the gods. And perhaps it was to a man who'd come near to tasting such mythical stuff himself on the increasingly common occasion.

* * *

><p>"I can't wait to be back on active duty, civilian life is a bitch." Donnach, Don, Innes said as he slid smoothly into an empty seat at the bar, subtly signaling the bartender for a drink as he smiled a greeting to the two men already nursing half empty tankards.<p>

The man closest to him, a tall, gangly sort with an eye for sniping, cocked a finger at him and imitated firing a gun, "What's brought about this sudden epiphany? Ideas, Mr. Lupus?" he nudged the muscular, stocky Hispanic beside him and received a glare that promised hurt.

Don sighed, this could not end well without intervention. "How many beers have you had Eric?" he asked, doctor instincts taking over even as he took hold of his own drink. The gangly man laughed and leaned over, supporting himself on the bar top.

"This is my second, I'll have you know." he replied authoritatively. On his other side 'Mr. Canine', or Jaime Guadalupe as he was christened at birth, grumbled a bit then raised his voice so Don could hear.

"His second this half hour, he means." he clarified for the medic.

"How long have you two been here?" Don asked, looking at his watch, he wasn't horribly late. Jaime grunted into his drink, taking a long draught and wiping his mouth gruffly, then proceeded to engage a stuffed moose head in a staring contest.

"Just a couple of hours." Eric piped up, about to wave for a refill before Don leaned over and smacked his hand down, turning his attention to the bartender and smiling apologetically with his request.

"Don't let him have anymore." he instructed, the man nodded, and Don returned his attention to his unit buddies. "Is Ben coming?"

Jaime shook his head with a sour look while jabbing Eric in the side to keep the man from ogling to much at a woman who'd just walked in. "Maybe, he said he had to go over some paperwork with a coworker, something about budgets and results and might be late or not come at all. I dunno." he drank down the rest of his beer and signaled for another.

Eric shot him a mournful look as his request was filled, Don merely shrugged. "Had you paced yourself for once, maybe you wouldn't have to be micromanaged so often." he refused to feel guilty, Eric's doe-eyed look resembling more of a droopy eyed drunk helped.

Ignoring the sharp shooter, Don attempted to engage Jaime in conversation while he waited for Ben to arrive, if he was going to at all. Too often the SAS soldier turned MI6 spy cancelled plans due to complications in his day: extra paperwork, extended mission, long debriefing, and more paperwork. It irked Don, to say the least, that while he was constantly trying to keep their old training team together Ben's superiors seemed to have an agenda against such attempts.

"Bad day, Jaime?" he asked his noncommittal grouch of a friend. Jaime snorted incredulously.

"If that's what you call it." he grumbled, gulping down the rest of his tankard but not getting another too quickly. "I don't know _what's _wrong with teenaged children these days that make them think they can get away with anything. Stupid little fuckers." Jaime volunteered as a P.E. substitute at all the local, and occasionally further, schools, private and public alike. The schools liked his no nonsense attitude and army background, and the students were terrified enough of him after a good hour to at least be on better behavior than before.

"What's they do?" Don asked sympathetically, sipping from his tankard delicately. Jaime shook his head.

"Nothing a good 8 laps Monday won't fix. Even rich fuckers need to learn respect." he slammed his fist on the table, startling Eric beside him and giving Don cause to anchor his drink to the counter or risk a spill form the force of the slam's resulting tremor.

"Oooh, that one private school you're subbing at for a week?" Eric asked, interjecting himself into the conversation before Don could respond to Jaime. The Hispanic nodded shortly. "What's it called again? Rivercountry? Creeknation?"

"I think you're looking for 'Brookland'." Don supplied helpfully, sipping more from his beer. Eric brightened.

"Yeah! That one!" he said exuberantly, words a bit slurred and eyes shining with inebriation as his drunken state caught up with him. "What was the actual coach's name? The one you're subbing for? He had a funny name! Like Tortus Harry-suuuuhn, or something."

Jaime looked at Don with a raised eyebrow, they shared a look: 'I'll get the shovel, you get the cement.'

"It's Tom Harris, Eric." Jaime said, rubbing his forehead in a rare act of weariness. Had the man hair on his shiny globe of a head, Don was sure every silver or gray hair would have a name or codename, and both would start with 'E'. Eric nodded and laughed.

"Yeah! That one! Isn't it a funny naaay-mmm?" he said in a hazy state of standing on the brink between pure happiness and crippling depression. Don could only pray that the sharp shooter started sobbing when he got him safely ensconced later in his _own_ apartment.

"Er, no, not really..." Don said, trailing off uncertainly. Jaime opened his mouth to add salt to the wound but was cut off before he could speak.

"Hey guys! Sorry I'm late, I didn't think I'd be able to come at all but luckily my partner excels at paperwork on the fly," Ben bloody Daniels dropped into the seat beside don, signaling for his own beer, and smiling obliviously at the three faces that turned. "You should thank him."

"If you hadn't joined MI6 in the first place, maybe you wouldn't have to have your _partner_ help you." Jaime grumbled moodily and stood, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. "I'm going home. Shooting seminar early tomorrow."

"Ah! Wait!" Ben grabbed the grumpy Hispanic's arm as he passed and Jaime glared at him.

"What?" he asked, irritable to say the least. Don winced, grabbing a sober Jaime on a good day wasn't the best idea, grabbing a tipsy Jaime on a really bad day was like offering yourself up to the powers that be and saying: 'Do _you_ want to cut my balls off, or do you want me to? Since, you know, I seem to be leading myself to that anyways and I'd rather have it a clean deal'.

Ben looked at him pleadingly. "Won't you stay for a little longer?" he asked, accomplishing the doe-eyed look better than Eric had, probably all that spy training he went through. "I just got here, c'mon, just one hour won't hurt!"

Jaime ripped his arm out of Ben's grasp and wavered for a few seconds before grunting and collapsing in the seat beside his former unit mate. "You better have some good news and a comfy couch." he said, Don covered a snort with a quick gulp of beer.

Of course, now he remembered, Ben was one of the only men in the world that Jaime just couldn't stay angry at. One fluttered eyelash and the steely eyes glinted in defeat, sometimes they seemed to exist in their own little gay soap opera. Don hid his smile behind the rim of his tankard, wouldn't that be the day. Although, he couldn't really imagine Ben and Jaime together...were they even gay. Eric scooted into the seat Jaime had previously occupied.

"How completely boorish." he said, Don winced again, the first sign before the sniper went all weepy and mental on everyone. There went the good mood. The medic sighed and stood.

"Sorry Ben, Jaime, I have to take Eric home now, he's past the point of no return." he said, apologetically. Eric straightened and pouted.

"Whaaat?" he whined. "I have to go home now? Pfffft. Lame. I wanted to chat with Ben!" Don pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

"If you hadn't drunk so much before he got here, maybe you would." he said, trying to stay gentle but stern, fighting to not just snap and yell at the idiot of a SAS soldier. Ben gave him a sympathetic look, Jaime just ordered another beer.

"See you later? I might have the afternoon off tomorrow, if my partner is gone as he says he'll be." Ben said, Don shrugged.

"Sure, I've got the entire month off. Drop by whenever, as the curse of bachelordom allows." he smiled at the spy and the spy smiled back. "Grab your jacket, Eric, I'm bringing you home." Eric managed to finally pull himself from his seat, not without much pouting and winging, and before they left Don turned back to Ben for one final word. "Oh, and next time? Bring the savior guy, we ought to meet any new friends you manage to keep in that wolves pit you call a world-saving agency." Ben managed a strained smile.

"Right. Yeah." he said and took a gulp of his drink. "I'll keep that in mind." Don met the statement with a skeptical look but didn't comment, choosing instead to bid farewell to Jaime, who at least said 'good bye' back.

The entire drive back to his house, he'd decided halfway to Eric's that the man wouldn't survive the night without drunk dialing a superior and getting binned for whatever horny nonsense he came up with, Don tried not to ram his car into a tree just to shut up the now self-depricating sniper. Don could only comfort himself with the knowledge that someday Eric would have a girlfriend, maybe even a wife, to drive him home from late night binges and kids to prompt him into maturity.

He couldn't say the same for himself. Don hunched over the steering wheel of his car and stared resolutely at the dark street that stretched before him, ignoring the reeling Eric beside him.

_Being gay sucks._

* * *

><p>"Alex, hey, wake up Alex." soft shaking interrupted his dream and Alex was brought to consciousness by a hand on his shoulder and an urgent voice, accompanied by a hot, humid gust of air against the shell of his ear.<p>

Had he been on a mission, arms would be broken, but Alex had been lulled into a sort of forced tranquility by a week off of field work and as such didn't react as he would usually to whoever was attempting to wake him fully.

"Dun' wanna." he mumbled sleepily, shrugging his shoulders in a weak attempt to shake off the persistent hand.

"Alex," the spy's brain foggily registered the voice as his partners, "Alex, really, you have to wake up." the blond grumbled petulantly but raised his head all the same, blinking owlishly at the man that entered his vision.

"What?" he asked, irritable now that he was awake enough to feel anything other than lethargy, "What is it that so urgently demands my presence when I want, no, _deserve,_ to sleep?" he blinked some more to clear his vision and shook off the hand more effectively this time as he stretched languidly. He felt joints pop and his back ache from sleeping in an unnatural position. He never got such luxury as stretching on a mission, it was always flick the switch and turn from wavering unconcious to alert awareness in a snap.

"Well, Blunt wants you for a...mission, of sorts." his partner told him, speaking still in a hushed, gentle voice. The kind a zookeeper might use in relation to a hungry beast, regardless of how tamed it claimed to be. Alex was immediately wide awake and fumbling for his coffee mug, which his partner helpfully supplied after a moment of searching his desk in a half panic.

Alex drank the cold, rather thick, liquid without a thought for how old it was, at most a night if he was right in his estimation that it was early morning, and sighed in relief when he put the mug down with a soft tap on his desk. "That's better." he turned to his partner. "Now then, what does Blunt want, Ben?"

Ben offered an small, apologetic smile before he spoke. "He well, he wants you to do something of a favor, not for him but for the principal of your old high school." he said, shuffling his feet awkwardly as he delivered the news. Alex 'hmph'd, unimpressed, and gulped down the rest of the coffee.

"That's nice."

"The principal has recieved a threat from the vestiges of Scorpia, some of the henchmen who never knew what else to do after the fall of their masters but seek revenge against you." Ben continued, keeping his eyes resolutely away from Alex's, "Blunt wants you to act as the principal's bodyguard of sorts for the next month or so until we can get the situation under control." Alex was paying attention now, perking up at the news that someone could be in danger because of him, the old hero-complex in play.

"Of course!" he exclaimed, fully awake and functioning at maximum off-duty capacity finally, "I owe Mr. Bray a lot. He's a pretty nice guy." he nodded to affirm his own statement and poured the vestiges of the night old coffee into his cup and downed it in one gulp. "When do I start?"

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><p>AN: So, yes, as previously stated this will be slash. Snake/Alex to be precise. Mmmm, scotts. I'll do my best to keep everyone in character, so do inform when I slack on that, yeah?

Thanks for reading!

Fridgeworks


	2. Tea

A/N: getting a little more action in this chapter! (Oh really?)

One quick note, I'd forgotten that the names for K-unit I'd given them aren't universally known and was informed thusly so here they are: Eagle is Eric, Wolf is Jaime, Snake is Donnach and I think everyone should know that Fox is Ben Daniels, since I didn't make that one up (Oh Anthony, you so funny, giving one a name only after he joined MI6. Is that a special privilege? Just wait, one of the others will switch as well and BAM, a new name will be cannon.)

Also, I realized as I was reading this over that I refer to Donnach as Donnach instead of Don as I did laster chapter. I guess he just got a whole lot more formal with himself...I'm sorry.

On with the action!

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><p>"Hullo there, name's Alex Bray, I'm the old man's nephew." Alex grinned toothily as he sat in an empty desk between a prissy looking brunette and a red-headed jock. A grunt from the jock and a long 'hmm' from the brunette, as well as a light roll of the eyes, was the only response he recieved. The spy wiggled down, rooting himself to cheap blue plastic, and flipped his hair out of his eyes, Smithers had insisted on giving him a style that screamed 'falling sideways' and 'watch me angst'.<p>

It was first period and the only ones awake in Honors Literature were the bright and bubbly man beginning to gesticulate wildly as he paced back and forth before the class, Alex, and the odd student with an actual thirst for learning. Everyone else was catching up on missed sleep or daydreaming of the day's end.

Alex had slipped easily into his role, delinquent nephew of the principal who was roped into taking classes while his parents were out of country and he was officially on break. It was refreshing, to have a job like this one, Alex thought with a smile, pen twirling absently in one hand. Brought back his own memories of school, before he'd been blackmailed by Alan Blunt and his peppermint addicted right hand woman. Of sleeping through the morning, fooling with friends and playing football during P.E.

Speaking of P.E., Alex remembered what Ben had told him during the briefing, the actual coach was out for a month on sick leave and the sub was someone he knew, someone he was going to have fun with. And Alex was pretty sure that he didn't mean fun in the 'pillow fight' sense, but more of the 'give him hell'. He was looking forward to it.

"How about our temporary guest? Mr. Bray, would you mind telling us what you thought of the relationship between Paul and Kat from the book 'All Quiet on the Western Front'? Assuming, of course, that you've read it at your school, a classic really, I'm sure you have." the teacher, a Mr. Arnold Grace, smiled encouragingly at Alex and the spy pulled a face.

"They were totally gay for each other." he said, slouching in his seat and feeling his backpack dig into his back. He sipped from his travel mug while Mr. Grace gaped at him, thanking the powers that be that he was allowed to bring it with him and refill it in the Teacher's Lounge. "I mean, there was an entire paragraph where Paul talked about how much he loved Kat, yeah? Totally gay."

Mr. Grace managed to pull himself under control and smiled weakly. "You have to understand, Mr. Bray, that the concept of love was different back then-"

"Yeah, men were actually allowed to be gay in the army." Alex interrupted him with a steady gaze. He sat up abruptly, noting the teacher's flinch, and smirked. "But times have changed, haven't they? We read Julius Caesar and every time the term 'lover' is used in connotation between two males, it's just 'they're great friends' and 'different concept of love'. Today the same thing happens and suddenly *BOOM* fangirls!" he made small explosions with his hands for emphasis then settled back into his chair. "Jus' saying, yeah?"

"I-Uh-erm-" Mr. Grace floundered for words. The jock beside Alex shifted uncomfortably in his chair and scooted to the far side of his chair discreetly. The brunette stared at him with appraising eyes, wide behind designer glasses, the kind that changed with the lighting Alex bet, and a pencil twitching in her hands. A closet 'fangirl' then?

Alex didn't have time to ponder after that. He was promptly sent to the principal's office with a small pink slip in one hand and a 'Even if you're related to the principal, that doesn't mean you can make such outbursts and expect not to be punished' from poor Mr. Grace.

As the blond spy trudged to Mr. Bray's office he couldn't help the Cheshire grin that threatened to split his face. He shoved his hands in his pockets and began whistling a video game theme song with an added little pop to his step.

Oh damn, was it good to be back in school.

* * *

><p>"Alex, you <em>do<em> realize how you could have just compromised your cover, right? Speaking up like that in class on a subject you shouldn't, by all means, be so...so passionate on." Mr. Bray sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger as Alex's grin, if possible, grew larger. I'm getting to old for this, the principal thought.

"He was asking for it, Mr. Bray." the blond said matter-of-factly as he collapsed into the empty seat before Mr. Bray's desk and thumped his backpack beside him on the floor, reluctant to drop his high school persona completely.

"How so, Alex?" Did he even want the answer to the question? Mr. Bray wasn't at all sure. Knowing the man sitting before him, an unnerving grin affixed on his face, the older man couldn't help but pray to whoever was listening that he hadn't signed his sanity away in accepting Alex as his bodyguard while the threat hadn't been traced or confirmed as real.

Alex took a long drink of his coffee before replying loftily. "Because, my dear sir, we were discussing All Quiet on the Western Front, in a Honors class."

"So...the explanation behind your strange and suspicious outburst is that 'it was an Honors class'?" Mr. Bray asked slowly, feeling a migraine start thumping a hello on the right side of his brain. Alex shrugged.

"Eh."

"Could you please elaborate? I really don't have time for this, and you still have to get to the Physical Educations class next."

Alex seemed to think about for a few seconds, chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully before releasing and nodding. "Certainly, dear friend." he circled a finger upward in the air as he talked. "At a mission in America, I was loaned to one of the agencies over there, I went undercover at some school in California and they'd all read the book their Sophomore year. Honors Literature is only open to Seniors, does this not sprout worry in your educator brain? That education is slowly degrading to the point where we read second-year books, for regular classes to boot, in an accelerated _Honors_ class?"

Mr. Bray promised himself a nice long soak in his bath even as he replied. "What, pray tell, does this have to do with your job?"

Alex paused then spoke. "Absolutely nothing, sir," he said, "Oh will you just _look_ at the time! I have just _got_ to get to P.E.!" he grabbed his bag and whipped it over his shoulder, speeding to the door and pausing to look back at Mr. Bray with a charming grin. "Later Mr. Bray! Maybe we could catch up for a coffee sometime!" Alex waved cheerily and was gone.

The aging principal sighed and resisted the urge to lay his head down on his desk and weep.

He was a dead man.

* * *

><p>"How was school, Alex? Learn anything new?" Mr. Bray asked at the end of the day when he and Alex met up in his office. The no longer teen-spy shrugged and ruffled his hair back from his forehead.<p>

"Not much," he said. "I mean, apart from the scarring news that Maddy Hills gives a mean blowjob, Jonas Blick is a suspect closet freak, and apparently Mr. Castillo-Torres, which is an awesome last name when translated, is my old unit buddy from the SAS? Not much. Not much." Mr. Bray looked at him blankly. "Castillo-Torres, it translates to 'Castle-Turret'."

Mr. Bray shook his head. "That wasn't what I was confused over, Alex," he said and interlaced his fingers, looking at Alex over the brim of his sensible, wire-rimmed spectacles.

"Oh, well then what was it that you were confused over?" Alex cocked his head to the side, smiling lightly. The perfect picture of innocent bewilderment.

"I-never mind," the older man sighed and focused his eyes more sharply on the blond sitting before him. "Are you sure you didn't catch anything about the threat? As much as I would like to believe that none of my students would ever join such an organization as horrible as SCORPIA, I really don't."

"Sorry, Mr. Bray, no word from the kiddies." Alex said with a shake of the head, slouching further in his seat. "Although..." he adopted a ponderous expression and tapped his bottom lip with a forefinger.

"Yes?" Mr. Bray leaned forward eagerly.

Alex sighed and shook his head. "Nah, it was nothing." he said. "Just heard some teachers in the break room saying something about 'advancements' and 'raises'. I figure someone must be looking for more pay, or a position that guarantees them more pay. Better look at retirement or keep one eye open. Wolves are vicious creatures when they're hungry."

"Do you think it might have something to do with the threat?" Mr. Bray asked, Alex shrugged.

"You should probably look into it, just to make sure." he said. "I'll tell the agency to run some background checks on a Mr. Hillfore, Mrs. Nops and Mr. Castillo-Torres. See yah tomorrow, Mr. Bray?" Alex stood up and slung his backpack over one shoulder.

"Oh, sure..." Mr. Bray said weakly. Alex smiled brightly at him.

"Oh, don't worry, friend!" he said, "I'm sure it'll all work out! Later tates!" after a rigid salute Alex slouched again and shuffled moodily from the office.

Mr. Bray stared at the door the spy had passed through for a while after Alex had left.

"I always liked the Bahamas." he muttered finally, breaking out of his trance and opening a drawer in his desk. From it he drew a rubber band held stack of retirement brochures and flipped half-heartedly through them before throwing them almost roughly back into their place. "Hungry wolves? Hmm, I guess they'd better get used to bowing down to this Alpha." he chuckled dryly at his own joke and pressed a button on his phone.

"Yes, Mr. Bray?" the training secretary answered the page, what was her name? Bridget? Britney?

Mr. Bray hazarded a guess. "Bridgney? Think you could bring in a cup of tea? It's going to be a long afternoon." there was a pause on the other end before the girl answered, this time her polite tone sounded a bit forced.

"Of course, Mr. Bray, I'll get it right now." the line went dead and Mr. Bray leaned back in his seat with a sigh. Was it just him, or did he hear her mutter 'my name is fucking Heather' as she hung up? The door opened to admit the girl, a plain little thing with a habit for plain clothing, and his precious tea, always Mango Ceylon with only a tint of milk and plenty of sugar.

She set it on his desk and with a small, strained smile and a 'good afternoon, Mr. Bray', the girl left him in peace.

Mr. Bray picked up the cup and raised it to his lips. He only sipped it once and immediately set it back down, he didn't touch it the rest of the day.

_I don't remember chamomile tea tasting so much like...dog piss_

* * *

><p>Donnach was bored.<p>

Not only was Jaime refusing to talk to him, apparently programming the man's alarm clock to let forth a burst of gunshot noises every morning wasn't in the man's 'haha' book, (He was pretty sure that the man was still subbing for the rich kid private school, though) but Eagle got called out to guard some big shot CEO of some company big on helping others while he was in Africa visiting the poor children.

Then Donnach didn't even want to think about what Ben was doing, something about 'rookie training' and 'teaching idiots how to pull a trigger on command' was all Donnach had heard over the phone that morning when he's called, the line was strangely crackly and short circuited before Donnach had time to ask for a clarification.

Whatever it was, though, it didn't sound fun.

So, having nothing else to do, Donnach collapsed onto his couch, turned on the TV and settled in to watch soon-to-be-brides beat on each other in a race to get the better wedding dress, or some such ridiculous nonsense. As he watched, too lazy to even change the channel in search of something worthwhile and brain stimulating.

Donnach had to admit that he was glad he was gay when he chanced upon such showings, no need to get in some hissy bitch's business and risk getting his eyes clawed out by fake nails and gaudy fake decorative gemstones.

Donnach flinched as one crazy bride bowled over another crazy bride in pursuit of some slinky wedding dress that would look better on a corner worker than a pure, virgin bride in Donnach's opinion.

He tried to tell himself to change the channel, perhaps to some gun-crazy show that talked about ghillie suit competitions and catered more to red-neck Americans and teens on house-arrest than him.

Even Wolf, the manliest man Donnach would ever have the pleasure of meeting, stayed away from such channels, preferring to clean his guns while he watched Japanese Iron Chef with his girlfriend.

But he was both too lazy to change the channel and Candy just started plotting revenge against Lulu for taking the wedding dress that was _obviously hers_. Having come to the conclusion that he might as well lose brain cells while he was off duty, Donnach burrowed further into the not very comfy couch cushions and watched.

Turned out it was a marathon day for the show and Donnach didn't have to worry about finding a new trashy show to watch in a half-coma. That was his first thought when the second episode began introducing new watchers to the brides-to-be, when halfway through the fourth episode the screen blacked out.

"Eh?" Donnach slid from the couch and checked the lights, they flickered on then off when he flicked the switch, so it wasn't a blackout. He tried the power switch on the remote, but no sign of the TV bringing him back to the world of vengeful brides-to-be. "Huh."

_Guess I should eat something then._ Donnach thought, heading for the closet sized kitchen off the living room. He chuckled as he grabbed two slices of bread from a bread box Eagle had painted daisies on one boring summer day.

"TV's telling me something, I need to get out more." He said to himself, popping the bread in his new toaster, having been forced to get a new one after the old one was dumped in a kiddy pool the same boring summer day that Eagle fancied himself an artistic assassin.

Looking outside the sky was clear of any clouds and a bird tweeted cheerily from a tree. It was a beautiful day and Donnach sighed. "And no one to spend it with." He watched a cat stalk the bird in the tree until his toaster dinged and ate the toast dry.

Halfway through his toast the house phone on the kitchen table began to ring a merry tune. Grabbing the phone with his free hand Donnach pressed 'talk' and brought the newfangled device to his ear, speaking through toast crumbs.

"You've reached Donnach Innes, who may I ask is calling?" he asked.

"Get over here. Now." Jaime ordered harshly on the other end. Donnach blinked.

"Right on it." He hung up and shoved the last bite of toast in his mouth, heading calmly to the cabinet under the sink and grabbed one of many first aid kits around the house. Within minutes he was in his car and driving to Jaime's.

It wasn't a long way, a little over ten minutes with traffic, and Donnach didn't bother wondering why Jaime had called. He was the medic, when the medic was called so out of blue and gruffly there was important medic stuff to be done.

Of course, for all he knew it was just Jaime's girlfriend butchering herself trying to cook again and the lug of a Hispanic overreacting.

As Donnach turned into Jaime's driveway the front door opened and a white faced Kate beckoned him urgently. Popping out of the car with kit in hand, Donnach hurried to her and touched her shoulder with concern. "What happened, Kate?" he asked. She shook her head wordlessly, in shock Donnach assessed, and pointed in the house.

He nodded and with a last reassuring pat walked in. "Jaime?" he called, pausing in the hallway.

"Kitchen." Was the gruff response. Donnach detected a strained note to his voice and hurried over. Reaching the kitchen doorway and looking in, the medic saw Jaime kneeling on the fake linoleum beside a seemingly unconscious blond.

"Who is he?" Donnach asked as he knelt too and began checking for pulse at a limp wrist. Assessing with his eyes he saw little blood and a hand shaped bruise on the left arm. The person, whoever he was, lay on his back and Donnach saw his chest rise and fall with shallow breaths. Broken rib perhaps?

Leaning over his head, Donnach noted distantly that he wasn't a bad looking fellow and somewhat recognizable from somewhere, he listened at the lips. Raspy, quick exhalations warmed his earlobe and Donnach began gently feeling the arms.

"Cub." Jaime abruptly said. Donnach paused in his appraisal and looked up.

"Excuse me?" he asked, stunned if what he heard from Jaime was correct. Jaime set his jaw and stood.

"He's Cub. From SAS camp." He reaffirmed, folding his arms and steadily looked out the kitchen window. Donnach turned back to the blond, Cub, and saw it. Jaime was telling the truth or there was an eerily similar look alike of Cub in the world. In Jaime's kitchen.

Kate appeared in the doorway, still deathly pale but able to speak now. "Is—is he okay?" she asked quietly.

"I'm still trying to figure that out. He looks more okay that he could be, but he might have a broken rib or two." Donnach was wary to feel up Cub's chest, if he really did have broken ribs he wasn't going to be the one to compressed them and puncture a lung if that wasn't already done. "Might I ask how he came to be in your kitchen?"

Kate nodded and crossed the room to sit stiffly in a chair, hugging herself and staring at the prone man lying on her kitchen floor as she responded. "I was heating some water in the kettle to make tea for Jaime and I…someone—he—knocked on the French doors so frantically. He looked so afraid and desperate I—I _had_ to let him in, he gasped something out and collapsed on the floor." She looked away and into Donnach's eyes, clearly fighting back tears. "I called for Jaime and he called you immediately then we got him on his back carefully as we could. I went to the door to wait for you and Jaime, uhm, Jaime stayed with him." Donnach nodded and offered her a mild smile.

"Thank you, Kate." He looked at Jaime, who stood still with a shuttered expression. "Why don't you get Kate somewhere comfortable, yeah? I'll call the hospital and—"

"No." Jaime spoke gruffly. "Call Ben." Donnach frowned.

"Why? We've got to get him medical attention as soon as possible and—"

Jaime interrupted him again, authority clear in his voice. "Call. Ben." Then he was ushering Kate out of the room and left Donnach frowning in the kitchen. With a sigh and an apology to the unconscious Cub, Donnach grabbed his cell phone from his jacket pocket and dialed Ben's number.

It took two rings for the MI6 agent to pick up, sounding harried. "Yes?"

"Cub in is Jaime's kitchen unconscious and I was told to call you, any idea?" Donnach relayed the situation apologetically and there was a second pause on the other end.

"I'll be right there." The line went dead and Donnach pulled the phone from his ear to stare at it with a frown of consternation. Shaking his head, he wasn't going to get anywhere pursuing his confusion, Donnach returned his attention to Cub.

Gently shaking his shoulder the medic tested his level of unconsciousness. "Wolf should have known to wake you and keep you awake," he muttered under his breath. Cub groaned under his touch and was prevented from shifting by a strong grip on Donnach's part, eyes fluttered open and stared hazily up at Donnach.

"Wha—?" Cub slurred blearily. Donnach exhaled in relief, the kid—no, _man_—wasn't in a coma. There was one worry to check off the list.

"It's okay, help is coming." He said reassuringly, falling back on his basics back when he was greenhorn recruit, "I need you to tell me your name and what day it is. Can you do that?" Cub had begun to drift and snapped back as attentively as he was able to at the question.

"Ahlesss…" he murmured sleepily in a fuzzy tone. "Aless Rah…derrr." He blinked slowly and attempted to focus his eyes on Donnach's. "Yer not…Wolfff." Donnach sighed and resisted the urge to shake the man by the shoulders.

"The date, Alex, can you tell me the date?" he pressed, filing the fact that Cub knew he was in Jaime's house for later. Donnach was beginning to suspect that Cub had been drugged or at least suffered from acute head trauma to be responding the way he was.

Cub's head began to loll to the side and Donnach caught the cheek opposite him with a palm and levered him back. A sloppy grin pasted itself on Cub's face. "The…day-tuh—" he paused and a frown quickly formed as he appeared to Donnach to be thinking. "Ah, uh…Ah thin-k…Ah thin-k ish Wezzday?"

Donnach nodded. "Yes, good, it's Wednesday. Do you remember what happened to you?" now that he was sure Cub hadn't lost any basic senses Donnach was concerned with keeping him awake until Ben arrived.

Another grin spread over Cub's face and he closed his eyes. "Ah 'membe…Ah 'member…" he trailed off and Donnach shook him gently to open his eyes.

"Remember what, Alex?" he asked. "What do you remember?"

"He remembers that he was getting wasted in a bar." Ben answered from the doorway. Donnach looked up.

"Ah, Ben, you're here, I think he has a broken rib or two and—did you say _bar_?" he interrupted himself and looked back down at Cub, who sucked in a shallow breath and released it quickly with a rasp.

Ben knelt beside the medic and touched Cub's shoulder. "Alex," he said gently. The blond blinked up at him owlishly, recognition wafting across the haze in his eyes.

"Behhhn," Cub murmured with a small frown. "It hurtsss…" Donnach watched in confusion as Ben stood with a sigh and offered him an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, Don, he received a bit of bad news yesterday and disappeared to go, I know now, to a bar, without informing anyone of his…plans." He frowned down at Cub as he spoke. "He'd just recently learned where Jaime lived so I called to ask him to tell me if he showed up."

"And he did." Donnach supplied mildly. Ah, that was what all the signs pointed to. He'd never thought to consider drunkenness.

Ben nodded. "Correct," he patted the medic on the shoulder. "Thanks for taking care of him, probably got into a bar fight, the dolt." Donnach shook his head with a murmured 'No problem' and Ben continued. "I'll just take him off your hands then, get him checked out at the headquarters. Good day, Don." He smiled cheerily and knelt again to carefully hoist the blond into his arms and departed.

Donnach just stood there, feeling like he didn't understand any of what just happened. "I'll uh, I'll just go then." He muttered to himself and walked, more drifted really, back down the hallway to his car. On the way Jaime bid him farewell, receiving a lackadaisical goodbye in turn, and before he quite realized it Donnach was standing in the doorway to his own home.

Shaking his head to clear it and heading to the kitchen, the medic heaved a sigh and rubbed his aching forehead. "I need some tea."

* * *

><p>Disclaimer in the first chapter, thank you very much.<p>

Thanks for reading! I love how many alerts and favorite I got! But...I _do_ hold a very special place in my heart for my reviewers...hint...hint. Nooooo, I'm just kidding! I don't need reviews! Who needs _reviews_? I mean, they are definitely not the way for a writer to have incentive to give more...chapters...sooner...(My English teacher would hit me if he knew how many periods I was inserting.)

Love you all! Fridgeworks :)


	3. Espresso

Alex woke up at 4.00 AM on the dot, inner alarm clock running smoothly as ever, and slid out of bed. Covering a yawn with one hand and half blind with sleep, the spy retrieved a pair of running shorts and tatty shirt from his dirty clothes basket.

Humming under his breath in an attempt to achieve a status of full awareness, Alex pulled the clothes on over his sleep wear, which was, well, just his skivvies, his brain blinked slowly from its sleep as he pulled on his shorts to his hips and the faint smell of coffee registered wafting in from outside his door.

And then Alex snapped fully awake. His ears perked up and his breath caught, there was nothing to hear but the house waking up around him with tiny creaks and groans.

The alarms in his head rang clearer. Someone was in his house _and_ couldn't be detected. A single word bounded from wall to wall in his thoughts. _Threat, threat, threat._

Dropping onto the balls of his feet, Alex made his way to the open door, it was never closed, pushing it open quietly, he kept it well oiled. Peering out of the doorway and determining that there was no one on that floor with him, Alex slipped over to the banister overlooking the ground floor.

Nothing but the usual entry way met his eyes so he strained his ears again. _Nothing. Nothing, why can't I hear anything?_

And then a voice, breathy against his earlobe. "Alehhx." His body reacted for him, grabbing for the intruder behind him and sending him over his shoulder into the hardy oak banister with a loud "Oof".

Shooting to his feet and advancing on the enemy, Alex composed his face into something he figured was menacing. "Who are you and what do you—" then the pained face staring up at him regretfully from the floor registered and Alex blinked. "Ben? What are you doing in my house?"

His partner picked himself up off the floor with a visible wince, hand going to his lower back, and he offered a weak smile. "Just came to check up on you. Sorry. I should have known better than to do that." Alex frowned.

"Shite, I'm sorry, Ben, I wasn't, uh, thinking." He apologized, rubbing the back of his neck, suddenly self-conscious. "Do you, uh, want any coffee? Tea?"

Ben shook his head and straightened, popping his back audibly with a stretch backwards. "No, no, I already had some. Made you coffee though, if you'd follow me downstairs please."

Nodding blankly, Alex followed the older man down into the kitchen where, sure enough, a fresh pot of coffee sat in the counter _begging_ to be consumed. Grabbing a mug and filling it, Alex sat at the table and stared at Ben. "Mission?" he asked ignoring his burning tongue as he sipped his drug.

* * *

><p>Ben sat opposite him and was rather lost for words. "Yeah, see…that's the thing, Alex…" he paused, considering the air before him and sighed, shoulders deflating and chin tucking into his collarbone. "MI6 has decided to give you a half year leave, because of…well, you know. <em>That<em>." He stared at Alex as if willing him to get what he was trying to say and looked to the heavens for support when Alex stared at him blankly over the rim of his mug.

"Leave?" Alex asked, brow furrowed. "MI6 has never given me leave, for any circumstances. What happ—" he fell silent, realization dawning in an ugly cloud over his face and his expression turned sour. The mug was placed with a soft click on the table. "You don't have to dance around the subject, Ben, you're too duck footed for any finesse."

He turned to stare at the coffee bean grinder beside the toaster, ignoring Ben's obvious efforts to find something to say, ignoring best he could the insult, and coming up with nothing. Another sigh was exhaled. "They, uh, also told to me to tell you that they wired the money for the Brookland case to your account and Mr. Bray says thanks and…sends his condolences."

Alex turned back to Ben with a frown. "Condolences?" he asked crossed his arms grumpily. "Mr. Bray owes me no thanks, nor condolences and _I don't deserve to be payed_." Alex grabbed his mug and drained the last of the coffee in an attempt to calm himself.

Ben silently offered the coffee pot and Alex held out his mug to be refilled, taking another draught before putting it down again.

"It's okay, Alex, he knows you didn't mean to do it. Part of the job and all. I mean, from what I hear you've actually done it before, yeah?" Ben tried for a consoling tone, the usual animal tamer voice he used when Alex was distraught and at risk of running off back to Scorpia in a cloud of angst.

Alex stood angrilly and threw up his hands in the air. _Didn't really expect it to work_. Ben mused to himself, now preparing to weather the coming storm.

"Then Mr. Bray is an idiot!" Alex exclaimed fiercely, causing Ben to flinch back for fear of being engulfed. "I blew up a classroom! I. Shouldn't. Be. Rewarded!" he collapsed into the chair and glared sullenly at the bean grinder again.

Yet another sigh, accompanied this time by a pinch of the nose bridge between thumb and forefinger. Ben tried a different tactic. _Alex is such a child_. "You know you collapsed in Jai-Wolf's flat, right? Scared his girlfriend out of her wits, and all." Alex nodded semi-reluctantly, still riding on the anger high, but deflated a little nontheless.

"'m sorry." He mumbled, suddenly humble with downcast eyes. Ben groaned inwardly. _Shite, I've caught him on a bad day indeed. _But he pressed on regardless, perhaps he could get something good out of this.

"And Wolf had to call over Snake, who didn't know you were simply drunk out of your wits and was insanely worried about you and superbly disappointed in you when he was informed so." Ben prodded gently. "I think you should apologize to Snake, and Wolf's girlfriend, and Wolf." He added the Hispanic as an afterthought, it would do the man well to accept an apology.

Alex looked into his mug sullenly, obviously not liking the sound of apologizing—of course it could just be the Jaime factor—but nodded anyways. "Okay."

Ben grinned and leaned back, wincing slightly as his back complained. "Wonderful, thank you, Alex." He attempted a fatherly smile and managed to get at least some warmth in and smiled more when Alex returned the favor.

"If you say so, Ben." He drained that mug as well and Ben handed over the pot. "But, I'll, uh, need Snake's address. If I'm going to apologize, after all."

Ben shrugged. "Of course, I'll just write it down somewhere you won't lose it. Do it soon, yeah? And enjoy your leave." He stood, stretching his back again in an attempt to lessen the pain and almost sat down again. _Ahhh, hit the bad spot_. Alex shrugged again and gestured to the fridge.

"Notepad's on the fridge, might be a pen somewhere." He sighed into his drink and Ben smiled.

The older man excused himself shortly, saying he had other business to attend with a confidential wink and departed, whistling softly to himself. _Business with a bar. If I don't mind the alliteration._ He thought with a chuckle. _I oughta get a gig in comedy when I retire.__.._if_ I retire._

He chuckled again then resumed whistling.

* * *

><p>Donnach hadn't expected to open his door at 6 PM to the humble face of Cub. "Good evening, Mr., uh," the blond looked down at the slip of paper in his hand then back up at Donnach, smiling with thin lips and warm eyes. "Mr. Innes."<p>

The medic nodded cautiously. "That's me," he said, leaning against the doorway, one arm stretched to the other side as a barrier between his safe haven and this sudden, possible threat to peace and tranquility. "Good to see you well, Cub."

"I, actually, came to, well, talk to you about that," Cub looked about the hall, eyeing the other tenants' doors like people had their ears pressed and listening to their conversation, ready to report to superiors on the actions of one MI6 spy. Donnach restrained a snort and Cub looked imperiously at him. "Might I, uh, come in?"

Donnach made himself comfortable against the door frame. "Not much to talk about, you were drunk, I was there." He stated blandly, Cub flinched visibly and looked away with obvious discomfort, shifting on the soles of his feet restlessly. "Was there more?"

The blond sighed and pocketed the slip of paper before running his hand through his hair, Donnach noted that the other clutched a travel mug with white knuckles. "Can I _please_ just come in?" Cub's voice had a tint of desperation that intrigued Donnach, so he dropped his arm and gestured through the door.

Cub stepped quickly in far enough that Donnach could close the door then, while the medic was facing the door still, made his way to the living room. _Spies_. The Scot thought with exasperation as Cub checked each room he passed before disappearing through the doorway at the end of the small entryway.

Having no other choice but to follow, Donnach did, closing each door Cub had opened on his way.

"I want to say sorry for having…inconvenienced you." Cub said as Donnach appeared in the doorway to the living room, having taken up station by the lamp in the corner of the room.

Sitting in his armchair, Donnach propped his chin on his fist and stared down the still restless blond. "A card wouldn't do?" he asked, purposefully keeping his tone mild. _What does he want?_

Cub took a step towards him, opening his mouth to speak, then seemed to reconsider and retracted his foot. "I, uhm, I've got nothing else to do for half a year, figured it's better than watching the telly." He said, half muttering and rubbing his neck with his free hand, looking thoroughly uncomfortable.

Donnach was almost pleased seeing the spy so uncertain and didn't say anything immediately following the slightly insulting statement, preferring instead to examine the blond as he hadn't the chance to when he was fearing for the man's life.

_Changed a lot in 6 years_. The medic probably would have never guessed the solid man before him was the same 14-year old from back at training camp had they run into each other on the tube. Except for his eyes, Donnach would have known him in an instant anywhere for his eyes.

Plain brown, the plainest Donnach had ever seen on a person, but they still held a spark of the same childhood lost naivety that the medic had found remarkable in the grim faced teen from years ago.

_I suppose some things never change. _He thought. "Why were you drunk?" he asked aloud, watching carefully the spy's features and coming away impressed. No telling emotion crossed Cub's face.

"Do you really have to know?" he asked, taking a sip from his travel mug. _A-ha_. Nervous tick found. And people called SAS men unobservant.

Donnach shrugged and drew his chin from his fist, straightening. "Take a seat, you're making me uncomfortable." It was with laughable caution that Cub lowered himself stiffly into the couch opposite Donnach, both hands now clutching the travel mug.

"I just came to apologize." Cub said, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself than Donnach. "Is all."

"And yet you're still here. Not because I told you to." The medic agreed with a smile. "Should we play catch up? Last I heard from you before two days ago was when Jaime—Wolf to you—came back from a mission white faced and muttering something about 'just a kid'."

Cub managed a smile at that, a strained one, but a smile nonetheless. Donnach felt a small thrill of accomplishment. "I…suppose we could play catch up."

Donnach shook his head. "I barely know you regardless, no reminiscing on your part would please me. Nor the other way around for that matter."

The spy blinked and caught on. His smile turned a bit less strained and he sipped again from the mug. _He could just be addicted_. "My name is Alex Rider, 20-years old. I work at the Royal & General bank as an accountant consultant."

Donnach smiled back. "My name is Donnach Innes, SAS man. A pleasure, Mr. Rider." Cub shook his head and peered over the rim of his mug for his next statement.

"Please, Mr. Innes, call me Alex. Mr. Rider was my uncle."

Donnach snorted audibly. "Well then, Alex, I insist you call me Donnach."

They shared half-smiles.

* * *

><p>Alex arrived back home feeling considerably more light hearted than when he'd left.<p>

Locking the front door behind himself and pocketing the keys absent-mindedly, he leaned against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. A grin twisted his lips up and a soft snort escaped his nose as his head impacted on the wood behind him.

"Thanks, Ben." He murmured, closing his eyes. "I needed that." _As much as I don't like to admit._

Heaving himself off the wall, Alex felt all the strength drain from his bones and barely made it to the living room to collapse on the couch in a pile of tired spy.

Lying there and feeling the irresistible call of sleep gently pull him from the land of the awake, it was past his normal bedtime after all, Alex felt as though the stress that had been building up over the past week dissipated.

They, Snake and he, had half-arranged to meet again another day, having mentioned things like 'later' in their goodbyes. In Alex's book such pleasantries were truth and he found himself rather looking forward to seeing the Scot again, even if it meant avoiding certain questions.

With the assurance to himself that the next day he would…address his problems, Alex closed his eyes and fell asleep with a faint smile on his lips still, putting aside the consequences of sleeping on a couch in favor of blessed unconsciousness.

That night Alex dreamt of flying.

* * *

><p>"When does he get out of the hospital?" was the conversation opener for the day. Ben looked up from his desk, relieving his already aching eyes, and stared shrewdly at Alex.<p>

"I told you that already." He said, narrowed eyes boring into Alex's inquisitive ones. The blond shook his head with a shamed look.

"I was too drunk to really register what you were saying, sorry." The apology was clearly an afterthought but Ben didn't bother to contest Alex's insensitivity.

He set his pen down and twined his fingers together atop the papers he'd been marking up, providing the younger, but regrettably more experienced, spy his full attention. "I'll only tell you this once more so do pay attention." Alex nodded and Ben continued, pausing to wrack his brain for a moment. "Luckily, his injuries weren't as fatal as you'd thought, he'll be out sometime next month. You can visit him as often as you'd like."

The grateful look Alex gave him before he left after a muttered 'thanks' was the most he would ever get from the kid, so Ben took it graciously and returned to his work with only the smallest of frowns. _Paperwork ought to go to the interns. _He thought sourly as he began tackling another case file.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention something else." Alex popped back into the office, Ben didn't bother to look back up.

"Yes?" he asked, distracted by a fragmented scribble of a 'first-hand account'.

"I saw Snake yesterday, after I went to apologize to Wolf and his girlfriend."

At this Ben did look up, surprise coloring his face. "Really?" Alex nodded, looking slightly affronted.

"Yes, and you don't have to look so surprised, I'm not so rude that I would put it off for days." He said with reproach. "Anyways, what I wanted to tell you was that he's not as nice as his outward appearance would suggest. Is it just him? Or should I not go see him again?"

Ben choked on spit and spluttered for a few seconds to recover before staring at Alex incredulously. _What the—_"You're going to see him again? Willingly?" he asked. What happened to anti-social Alex? Alex who only got excited about going out with his best-mate Tom and ex-live in nanny Jack? Alex who'd refused every drinking invite Ben had ever offered and every call out to dinner?

"Yes, what's so strange about that? I have a social life." Alex ignored the coughed 'no you don't' in favor of repeating his earlier question. "Again: is he naturally mean? Or is it me that has to…change?"

Ben struggled to regain his self-control and not chuckle every time he opened his lips. Finally, he could speak, with Alex staring imperiously at him. "He's, he's just like that—Alex, are you going to…_pursue_ him? I honestly cannot think of any other reason for your newfound interest in my old team medic. He's practically ten years older than you to boot."

The glare Alex gave him could wither plants. "You can be really insensitive sometimes, Ben." He said with a huff. "It's none of your business what sex I like and whether or not I pursue your old team medic. I'm going to the hospital now, later."

With that last parting jab Alex disappeared once more and Ben sighed. "You're calling _me_ the insensitive one." He muttered and picked up the pen again. "And whenever someone says something like that it means that's exactly what they're going to be doing."

* * *

><p>Donnach almost hadn't expected the MI6 spy extraordinaire to appear on his doorstep ever again, and certainly didn't seek him out-spies were slippery fellows and a pain to track, much less find-so he was admittedly surprised to open his door one morning a few days after his and Cub's 'introductions' to find a smiling blond on the other end.<p>

This time, however, Donnach allowed the spy in without a prior interrogation and herded him to the kitchen before he could peer inside the rooms again where a fresh pot of tea was waiting to be consumed.

That day he learned that Alex Rider was addicted, truly addicted to coffee. Being a medic and knowing the affects of a caffeine addiction, Donnach was prepared to wage war against the evil black sludge.

But he also learned that day that Alex Rider would have none of that.

"If you're going to survive in the spy business you had better stop drinking coffee." Donnach warned the blond across the table from himself and his cup of wonderful, heavenly breakfast tea. Alex flashed him a blinding grin.

"That's never going to happen." he replied simply, sipping from the travel mug he'd had last time. Donnach would bet his tea pot the thing was glued to Alex's hand but for when it was refilled with more occupation poison.

"A dependence on caffeine won't help when you're given a mission and not allowed any, your cover might not drink coffee."

Alex gave Donnach a considering look and the medic gave him a guileless smile, taking a sip of tea.

"You're not quite as stupid as I've often considered SAS men to be." Alex finally said and Donnach fixed himself a pokerface.

"Must be the medic in me." he supposed offhandedly, letting the steam from the tea waft into his face and fill his senses with its heavenly smell. A snort caused Donnach to look up and see Alex sipping his coffee with an air of perfect nonchalance.

They stared at each other for a good few seconds, pokeface to pokerface before snickers and chuckles erupted on both ends and spy and SAS man were laughing together over tea and coffee.

"But seriously, an addiction to anything is bad for you." Donnach said when they'd both recovered. Alex met his eyes with a challenge in the set of his jaw and crease on his brow.

"What about exercise addicts?" he asked.

Donnach shrugged and sipped more tea. "Getting much too buff, I suppose. There's a point where it's just unattractive." _Most SAS men? Decently built. You? Rather perfect._ And then he realized where his thoughts had gone and spluttered into his tea.

"I'm sure it does taste disgusting, you should switch to coffee." Alex gave him a knowing look and Donnach gave him an obscene hand gesture in return. The spy gasped. "_You're bad_." he said with all the shock of a virgin maiden. "No wonder it doesn't seem like you've got a girl, you're much too vulgar."

The medic snorted into his tea and hurriedly the rest of the cup down, hoping the spy had noticed what he did and realize why he did it. _I will never be a spy_. Aloud he said, "And I'm sure the ladies fall all over your delicate poncy-ness."

Alex flipped him the bird. "You wish you could."

Donnach laughed and wondered where the conversation had gone. Why was he getting so buddy-buddy with a man he'd only known really for an evening? He blamed it on the spy's natural charisma, the man could probably stop a suicide bomber mid-run by talking to him as he went to pass, hollering, into the building.

A bit confused with himself and the blond grinning in front of him, Donnach shrugged in his head and knocked back an imaginary shot of 'who gives a fuck'. He then proceeded to laugh and joke with the blond for the next hour and bid him goodbye almost without realizing that the spy wormed a promise for lunch out of him on the way out.

_Perhaps...there's still hope for me after all._ Donnach thought as he closed the front door behind Alex. A giddy feeling he hadn't experienced in years bubbled up from his chest and shaped a ridiculous smile on his weathered cheeks. _Perhaps, perhaps._

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry about how slow I was in updating! (ooog) But school has been surprisingly busy for me and I did not like this chapter at all for a couple of days and had to come back to it when I could put aside the self-deprecation and actually fix it.

I realize that this chapter is filled with pointless dialogue that I will try to rectify next chapter, but who knows. I can only offer a meaningless apology. And more pointless dialogue from this side of the screen.

I could have gone half a chapter writing self jokes for Ben, and was sorely tempted to keep him chuckle-whistling just to fill space and because I'm finding older men with quirks really cute right now. (I'm sorry, but you have to listen to Boyd K. Packer's talk on the anniversary of seminary that was today, he's almost completely speaking another language but he's such an adorable old man. :D)

On another note: Thanks so much for the reviews and the alerts and the favorites! It warms an amateurs heart to get such support! I love you all. But...Very solemnly.

Here's a little child-raising advice: If you want a kid to swim, throw 'im in a pool; if you want a kid to fly, throw 'im off a cliff.


	4. Earl Grey

A month later Alex was going to open his car door, having left Snake's place after a microwaved 'meet-up'—Alex brought the meal and Snake had the microwave—when he saw something that stopped him in his steps.

His travel mug, that had so loyally stayed by his side for many years now, sat forgotten in the cup holder beside the driver's seat. _I didn't have it with me. _Was the instant revelation that bloomed in in the center of Alex's thoughts, disrupting traffic.

_I…didn't have it with me? _Alex's brain threatened to shudder to a halt, thoughts suddenly derailed and crashing together in a fatal cacophony.

_I didn't have it with me! _Trying to stay calm, Alex looked down at his hands, they should be shaking with need, but they were steady. _I must have drunk something at Snake's, something with caffeine. _He thought back with a wrong man's desperation: there was him arriving, plastic bag in one hand and the other free to knock. _No mug, no caffeine._

In Snake's kitchen, the SAS man was brewing tea while they chatted as a precursor to the eating. _No mug still, maybe I had tea without realizing it?_

Snake sat down across from Alex, tea mug in hand and offered some to the spy. Alex declined, he didn't like tea. Snake didn't insist, shrugging and told him he was missing out. _No caffeine. Not even when offered. I don't like tea._

After the meal they sat in the living room, Alex looked at Snake's books, he had a lot of cheesy romances. Snake insisted they were from his sister when she visited and forgot them when Alex teased him, Alex wasn't convinced. _Nothing but the book I was looking at in hand, Snake still had his mug of tea, refilled it earlier. _

Alex's heart stuttered, somewhere his rational mind screamed that he should be happy or at least light-hearted, but he was too far gone to listen to rationality. _I left it in my car._

There it sat, nestled in the cars cup holder, not even blaming him for leaving it there. Just waiting patiently for him to pick it up and use it as it was made for: carrying his drug.

The drug he hadn't gone into a withdrawal over.

Alex nearly swooned against the car, settling for a graceless slump onto the door, shoulder impacting with the roof, feeling the sidewalk open under him to swallow him whole into depths of confusion and regret.

His breathing quickened and a passing woman walked faster by. Lifting his eyes weakly to the window he knew to look into Snake's apartment, Alex stared, wounded and dying, at the pane. _What have you done to me?_

He received no answer but the distant barking of dogs.

Lurching off the car, Alex limply fished his keys from his jacket pocket, unlocked his car after many failed attempts, and caught his ankle on the step in to fall onto the driver's seat with a 'oomph'.

Blearily sitting up and closing the door behind him, having enough sense to draw in his ankle before more damage was done, Alex zeroed in on the travel mug. With shaking hands he gingerly picked up his faithful mug and popped open the dispenser lid.

Lifting the travel mug to his lips, Alex tilted back his head and let precious lukewarm nectar slide teasingly across the length of his tongue and down his throat, each swallow more tension relieving and calming then before.

When the mug was empty and no last drop could be wrung Alex let down the travel mug, popping it closed and set it with reverence back in the cup holder by his side. A gusty breath released from his lungs and carried with it the taste of coffee back up and over his tongue.

Alex sank into the driver's seat sighed happily. _Ah, coffee, how could I forget such a taste as you? How could I leave such a wondrous thing like you in the car? _He thought fondly, still ashamed of his crime but feeling somewhat repented nonetheless.

He sat there for a good five or so minutes, allowing the coffee to work its magic as he rested against the seat back, then started the car and departed from the curb for home.

Driving the familiar streets, Alex thought about the incident, half of his attention on the road, and what it entailed. He came to one conclusion: _That man is dangerous, will have to be more careful around him. Potential threat to a safe, relaxed off-duty life._

Back at Donnach's apartment the Scot looked out the window for the fifth time in a half hour and happened to see Alex's car pulling away from the curb. Tea in hand, the SAS man raised his eyebrows. _Took him long enough._

Then the phone rang a cheery tune and Donnach went to go pick up.

"You've reached Donnach Innes, who-?"

"How does 8 PM tomorrow at Cornelli's for beer and food sound?" Ben wasted no time, sounding more like he was giving an order then asking if Donnach was free for dinner.

Donnach sipped his tea. "Sure, why not, I've got nothing planned." He said.

"If something comes up, do call in advance won't you?" was it just Donnach or did Ben sound a bit strained?

"Er, yeah, I usually do, Ben." He wouldn't ask right out if something was wrong, being tactless was more Jaime's thing. "See you then?"

"Yes, sleep well. Goodnight." Ben hung up his end of the line before Donnach had time to relay his own farewell and left the SAS man staring confused at his telephone.

Sighing and shaking his head, Donnach replaced the phone on its stand and sipped ruefully from his tea. _Spies, they're all the same._

Moving into the kitchen he refilled his tea for the umpteenth time and stared absently into the mug as the fresh tea bag replacing the old bled into the steaming water. _ I don't know how any self-respecting Brit could forsake such a wonderful drink such as tea for coffee. _He mused and snorted softly, thinking of Cub.

_Although, I suppose in certain cases it could be considered endearing, always carrying a travel mug about like your life depends on it. _Donnach paused in his thoughts. _But…I don't think he had it with him tonight. _

Thinking back to the dinner earlier, Donnach came to a reinforced conclusion that Cub had, indeed, not had the travel mug in his possession. _I guess he can part with it for occasions. _The Scot figured and put the observation to the back of his mind and noting the time.

"Best get to bed then." He drained his mug, dumped the tea bag in a waste bin and went off to change and ensconce himself in blankets and sleep.

His dreams that night were tinted silver and held a faint scent of coffee.

The next day Alex lounged about the house, bored and with no motivation to find something to do.

He'd turned on the television, but there were only the worst reruns and infomercials.

He'd tried to brave the internet and 'surf the web' but his lack of real computer skills ran rampant and made the effort more frustrating than enjoyable.

He'd even tried to waste time cleaning his home collection of knives and guns, that had lasted a good hour, hour and a half, then left him still unsatisfied and bored.

Alex drank more coffee, perhaps more caffeine would get his mind jump started and thinking up things to do? Nothing came to mind.

After a couple of hours of frustrated searching, Alex flopped onto the couch and stared grumpily up at the ceiling, arms crossed and eyes sullen. _Fine then, I'll do nothing. _

Times like these Alex hated Ben, making him go on leave for half a year. Hadn't he thought beforehand of how boring leave was? Didn't he know how lacking Alex was in the art of social bonding and so had no one to actually spend time with outside the house?

He'd done it to punish him, Alex decided, staring hatefully up at the undeserving ceiling. He'd done it to punish Alex for being alive and help God punish Alex for being alive as well. He was clearly trying to kill the blond.

Well, that wouldn't do at all. Alex had a 'never been killed' record to keep, and boredom was going to have to be beat.

"Argh!" Alex twisted off the couch in a spasm of anger and caught himself before he face planted into the ground, jumping to his feet and heading with purpose to the coat closet. He retrieved his coat and shrugged it on over his shirt and denims, tugged on a pair of sneakers and wrenched open the front door after grabbing his keys to stride determinedly to his car.

"Oh, Ben, you have another thing coming if you hope to trump Alex-fucking-Rider." He muttered under his breath, unlocking the car and climbing in. Moving to put the key in the ignition, Alex froze and resisted the urge to bash his head into the steering wheel.

Slowly, he climbed back out of the car and began retracing his steps, muttering "Right after I get my coffee."

It was raining as Donnach pulled into the Cornelli's parking lot. "Evan better not drink too much tonight." He turned off his car with an ominous look through the windshield at the heavy downpour. Flipping up his jacket collar, Donnach opened the door and hurried across the lot.

He wasn't nearly fast enough to escape the worst of the rain and entered the bar trying to ruffle his hair dry. Almost immediately, scanning his eyes over the regular crowd at the bar, Donnach caught sight of Ben and waved with his free hand, giving up the effort to dry his hair and squeezing through the crowd.

"Hey, Ben. Thanks." He took the stool Ben had saved him and looked around, "Eric's not here yet? Did the terrorists take over?" he laughed and turned back to the spy, his smile dropped at the serious look on Ben's face. "What happened?"

The look lightened and Ben gave him a faked smile. "Nothing, just thinking about a mission. Eric's not coming, I only invited you." Donnach's eyes widened then he leaned forward to scrutinize the MI6 agent.

"I won't ask, but I hope you don't think so badly of me that you think a smile like that will fool me." He snorted and sat back, nodding when the bartender caught his attention and putting up one finger, speaking aside to Ben. "I may be SAS, but I'm a medic in the SAS. I'm just as intelligent as you, Ben."

Ben didn't deflate or flinch back, but his shoulders tensed and his grip around his beer tightened. Donnach was going to have to force it out of him, he saw and sighed. "It's about Alex."

_Or…maybe not_. Donnach blinked. "What…about him?" he asked cautiously. _Are you his mother?_ Ben straightened and released his beer to cross his arms and stare down the now wary Scot.

"Be careful. You don't want to get in over your head." Ben caught Donnach's eyes and held them, he wasn't joking or he was better at pretending than he seemed.

Donnach's drink arrived and he turned to grab it, given a reason to tear his eyes from Ben's. "Why would I get over my head in anything to do with Cub, Ben?"

"Because I know him, and I know you." The spy replied with a vagueness he must have been taught. Donnach turned back and narrowed his eyes at him.

"You're acting like our being friendly to one another, which by all means you shouldn't be against, is going to lead to the world ending." He drank from his beer and raised his eyebrows pointedly at Ben.

The spy shrugged and looked at the engraved mirror on the wall behind the bartender. "It might." He smiled introspectively and Donnach began to get the feeling that both Ben and Cub knew each other _very_ well and the conversation was steadily heading nowhere.

Not knowing what to say to get anywhere with the spy without having to face more vague answers and reminiscent, inside joke smiles, Donnach sighed and stared at his beer. _All for the sake of friendship_. He refused to think of anything more at the risk of making all further encounters with Cub awkward and punctuated with ruminating silence.

"Hello Ben, Donnach. Fancy meeting you both here, mind if I take a seat?" _Speak of the bloody devil._ Donnach looked up from his drink at the blond man, who was smiling at Ben with the sweetness of a serial murderer.

Ben smiled back, more naturally but with the wariness of a man knowing when he was teetering on the edge of a pit fall. "Hello, Alex, don't mind at all." He said, rather late for Alex had already taken a seat to Donnach's left, sandwiching the SAS man between him and Ben.

"Hello, Alex." Donnach smiled greeting and Alex smiled back, genuinely the Scot noted, before drinking from his ever present travel mug then speaking.

"Good evening."

"We were talking about you, Alex." Ben raised his voice to be heard over the surging crowd and Alex raised his eyebrows speculatively.

"Is that so?"

Ben nodded and Donnach had the feeling he was watching two animals circle before the battle, and he was in the middle. It wasn't a very safe feeling, even being SAS as he was, when sandwiched between two spies, in some kind of contention, with high up connections and skills that sold bestsellers.

"I have to admit my surprise at how well you two have hit it off after the incident, considering your history and backgrounds." The older, yet newer, spy admitted to the younger veteran.

Alex laughed and patted Donnach on the shoulder, causing the SAS man to tense. "We have a lot in common, and he wasn't really the one causing me so much trouble back at the SAS camp, if it were Wolf that had to apologize profusely to I don't think there'd be many limbs intact on either of us by the end of it." He laughed and sobered to lean forward and fix Ben with a challenging look. "You should know that, Ben, of all people."

Ben smiled guilelessly. Donnach repressed a shiver. He was suddenly regretting having accepted the dinner invitation. _I'm hungry._

* * *

><p><em><em>A/N: As Theory of Knowledge IB states that I can state and you can't really refute: I'm not late and this chapter isn't short, it's merely society that puts such bindings as 'late' and 'short' on things such as 'chapters'. (Also, that pipe is not a pipe) *dons hipster glasses*

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Please don't kill me.

__On another note, thanks so very much for all the reviews! (I'm shocked quite frankly that no flames have branded themselves cruelly onto my eyes, but let's not count our chickens, eh?) Also thanks for the watches and favs! I appreciate every one and my heart fills with irrational joy and love every time I see a new email pertaining to this story in my inbox.

If I haven't replied to your review, it's not because I don't love you, it's because I've been hit with a bad case of the 'what the hell do I say that I haven't already said, oh God I'm going to make myself seem a fool and they'll never read my story ever again's. I'm sorry for that too.

I don't think you all realize how much I love every one of you. I don't have a lover/spouse/other form of marital or non-marital attachment to another human being so all that love that would go to them? It's going to all of you and this story. (Which means that you don't want to be my lover because I would never visit you. Ehem.)

Thanks for sticking with me and reading and reviewing and being awesome!

Fridgeworks


	5. Mocha Latte

"We should probably order food now, anything in particular you're craving, Alex?" Ben changed the subject as he waved over the bartender and met no opposition from Donnach or Alex in doing so.

"I've a hankering for cake, if that's what you mean." Alex grinned at the frown Ben gave in response and spoke again before Ben had a chance to harp on his choice. "But I suppose a steak would be nice as well, _man _food."

Donnach sighed as it appeared that the two spies had gone off into their own little world of spy-inside jokes. He gave the bartender a shrug as the two men bantered over him. "A steak for the blond, medium-rare, and I suppose the same for the other and me." He made the executive decision but right when the bartender made to deliver the order Ben stopped him.

"Ah, cancel my steak and make it a Caesar salad, please? Dressing on the side, thank you." He smiled charmingly and Alex butted in before the bartender could leave with the new order.

"And if my steak could be just medium, please, I would appreciate it."

The bartender looked at Donnach with raised eyebrows and the SAS medic offered an apologetic smile. "No change on my part, sorry." The bartender left muttering something under his breath that none of them could catch and Ben chuckled.

"Never trust a SAS man with dinner orders." He remarked and Donnach frowned, narrowing his eyes at the _new_ spy.

"You used to be SAS as well, Ben." Donnach said, one eyebrow arched. To that Ben nodded and twirled a finger in the air.

"And no longer a SAS man I am, for _I_ am quite adept at giving others' dinner orders." he spoke with a tone fit for the high and mighty. Looking down his nose with a twist to his lips that belied his haughtiness at Donnach who snorted, not at all impressed by the theatrics of his friend.

Alex chose that moment to interrupt, leaning across the bar top in front of Donnach to address Ben with a grin. "I don't know about that, Ben, every time we go out you seem to be in the habit of forgetting what I like to _drink, _of all things." Donnach raised his eyebrows. _Dinner dates?_ _Them two?_

Well, he certainly couldn't leave that topic at rest and so Donnach leaned casually on the bar top with one elbow to give Ben an arched brow stare. "You go out to dinner with the blond here but never have time to bring him with you to our meets at the bar and even miss out yourself on multiple occasions? Laddy, that's suspicious in my book." Ben at least had the grace to look guilty, knowing Donnach's intuition as he did, he couldn't get away with this through a smile and a song.

"You've got me, Scottish He-devil." He laughed then and drank from his mug. "I am such as the evil one in this story and actively try to prevent meetings between the blond and the gang! Oh the horrors!" He had the sense to put down his drink before raising his arms dramatically with his exclamation.

"I find it rather offensive that you both insist on referring to me as 'the blond' when I'm right here." Alex said, leveling a stare at Donnach who'd turned innocently to smile guiltlessly at him. The young spy laughed at the smile. "I should get you in a bar more often, if that's all it takes to get you joking around so naturally." He shook his head and sipped from the travel mug. Ben sighed and drank again from his mug.

"And the point of this entire evening is now absolutely ruined." He cast his eyes above to the ceiling as though it was some higher power's fault then turned to send Alex a reproachful look. "How did you even know we were here? Blasted brat." Donnach barely caught the hum that preceded Alex's words, the low noise swallowed by the crowd around them.

"Would you believe me if I said that I'd tapped your phone line and came here in revenge for the forced leave you have me on? To ruin any attempts at one-on-one socializing?" He grinned at the rise in Ben's eyebrows.

"I would have to disagree with the tapped phone line," Ben replied with a loftiness in his voice that Donnach recognized from the earlier food debacle. "But the ruining my life is entirely plausible coming from you." Alex snorted and Donnach almost mirrored him.

"This overconfidence of yours will be your downfall, Ben." Alex laughed, although Donnach noted the touch of sobriety in the sentence. It was true, he agreed, even faked as Ben was doing it was a bit of a risqué thing. Then the blond was leaning further down the table and Donnach caught a whiff of his hair. He recoiled and rubbed his nose with disgust.

"Goodness, Cub, when was the last time you washed your hair?" he asked as the spy looked at him quizzically. Alex pulled back and straightened, feeling his hair as if to test the question for its validity. Then he smiled with a blank innocence that made Donnach fell like retching rainbows it was so fake.

"Yesterday?"

The Scott shook his head. "Oh no, that does not smell like a day unwashed." He frowned. "I hope you weren't planning on getting laid tonight, because it would not be happening unless the lass had a lack of the sense of smell." Alex looked rather offended by that.

"Good thing I wasn't then, eh?" he muttered heatedly under his breath, turning away from the SAS man. Unseen to Donnach a smirk lit Alex's lips for the next retort, raising his voice to be heard more clearly over the din of the bar. "You'd think you had a vested interest in my getting laid." A fist to prop of his chin completed the image of pouting and Donnach snorted this time.

"Had I an interest in your getting laid I would switch that devil's brew in your mug with alcohol the second you weren't looking." He said and Ben laughed.

"Devil's brew," he rolled the word around in his mouth, testing it out. "I like that, fitting." He drank more from his mug and laughed again. Donnach watched him from the corner of his eye, turning his head to see more clearly. _Getting drunk already?_ He mused skeptically. _Can't be, if he started when I arrived. _He might not have, Donnach didn't know when the ex-SAS man had arrived himself.

"If it's the Devil's brew then you can be sure that I'm properly and utterly ensnared." Alex retorted, turning back to level his stare fully at the other two men. "You will never pull me away from it. Ever." Donnach blinked, the declaration was quite earnest.

He smiled. "And what would occur if I happened to risk curing you of your addiction?" he asked, with equal levels of pure curiosity and playfulness. Alex shrugged and drank from his travel mug.

"I suppose you won't know until you try." His eyes danced over the rim, taunting Donnach to try. The exchange reminded the Scott suddenly of childhood dares, and he couldn't help but grin back at the blond.

"Am I being excluded now from this conversation?" Ben interjected, eyebrows seeming to be permanently raised. "Because I'll tell you, Donny, from personal experience that the blond can take quite drastic measures to not be without his 'Devil's Brew'." He chuckled and Donnach remembered something.

"I actually have to wonder at that, lads," he mused aloud, addressing both Alex and Ben now, instead of one or the other. "The last time Cub was at my place he seemed to be without his travel mug the entire time, no symptoms of needing it either." Ben froze in the middle of another gulp, jerkily putting the mug on the bar top and staring at Alex.

"That so…?" he breathed. "No need for coffee at…Donnach's place." There was a sudden sharpness to his eyes that appeared in Donnach's eyes to pin Alex in place. Who had just about begun to launch himself from the barstool he'd occupied.

A nervous laugh and another drink of his 'Devil's Brew', Alex shifted back into his seat as though he had just been making himself comfortable, not about to escape the scene.

"One Caesar salad, dressing on the side, one medium steak and one medium-rare." The bar keep appeared with the orders, breaking the bond that held both Ben and Alex in place. The former enthusiastically receiving his salad and the latter attempting to do the same. Donnach, watching Alex begin to cut furiously into his steak, began to wonder if he'd somehow touched on something sensitive between the two spies.

Seeing the tactlessness of bringing up the question then, as if he hadn't already done so, Donnach let the issue be in favor of cutting his own steak up and devouring it with a hunger he hadn't realized he had. Dabbing at his mouth with a napkin when he was done, he noted the status of his companions. Alex was making steady but slow progress at his own steak and Ben didn't seem to have really touched his.

"If you don't start to eat that soon I will be force feeding you." Donnach nudged his old team buddy gently with his elbow, Ben looked at him with a smile.

"I just realized how hunger I am not," he said. "I had a big lunch." He reached for the mug of beer and Donnach was quick to smack his hand away and back towards his fork.

"And now you will have a small dinner." He said with the authority of an experienced medic, the bend in his brow daring Ben to argue. "All you've had this evening is beer, I refuse to be responsible for the alcohol poisoning of someone other than Eric. Especially someone such as you who _should know better_." Ben sighed and with a half-smile began eating more voraciously than before after a muttered 'alright, alright, _mum_'.

Alex snickered on Donnach's other side and the Scot turned to eye his progress more intently as well. "And you, you had better finish everything on that plate. That leanness isn't all muscle yet, you need meat on those bones." He ignored the impish grin that lit up Alex's face and the comment that followed.

"Wouldn't _you_ like to know how lean my body is."

It seemed that being at a bar brought out the strange side of everyone, Donnach mused as the bar keep took away his empty plate and he nodded for an offered water. Alex became much more childish, even flirtatious if Donnach wasn't hearing through a filter he refused to admit he had in regards to the blond, and Ben seemed prone to attitude switches like the wind changed directions.

"So, no coffee at Donnach's, eh?" Ben pulled Donnach from his thoughts, leaning over his empty plate with a thoughtful look and interlaced fingers. Alex refused to answer, shoving his mouth full of steak and pointing at it with a helpless shrug, as if saying 'sorry, can't talk with my mouth full'. Donnach snorted, if that was how he covered up most inquiries he was surprised the spy was still alive.

"_Mr. Rider, can you explain what you were doing in our office?" "Can't. Chewing gum."_ Donnach snorted again as the scene floated across his thoughts, he could most certainly see evil villains growing infuriated with the guileless act of Alex's. Growing aware of his surroundings once more, Donnach found both men looking at him curiously.

"Think of something funny, pal?" Ben asked, with a cautiousness that Donnach grinned at. He inclined his head and scratched his clean shaven jaw.

"I suppose I did." He agreed and laughed as Alex swallowed finally the large amount of food in his mouth and made a point to take a long drink of coffee. Ben gave Donnach one last look asking if he was okay mentally before focusing on Alex once more.

"Drinking a lot now won't change the past." He assured the blond. Alex's eyebrow twitched and he took another sip.

"But one can try." He said, setting the travel mug down with a definite click on the bar top. Donnach leaned back slightly, stretching his back and allowing the spies better vantage points for one another. He found he rather liked not being in the spotlight when it came to the spies, watching them was actually quite entertaining. _Too bad Ben had never brought Alex over to our bar meets. _He though mirthfully. _Although, perhaps this is why…?_

…..

Alex didn't know the answer to Ben's query, and that was partially the reason he made it so difficult for him to question him. Noticing the way that Donnach had leant back in his chair and stayed that way, allowing for Ben to look at him without leaning across the bar top as much, Alex was beginning to feel that his revenge on Ben wasn't going to come that night.

No, it appeared that the tables had turned on him. All because of that seemingly innocent comment of Donnach's. _Haha, get Ben into it, clever Mr. Snake._

He wished he had an answer. To be completely honest Alex was as freaked out by the incident as Ben had been when Donnach first brought it up, he didn't know why in the medic's place his caffeine addiction hadn't acted up and he hadn't even noticed that he'd left the travel mug in his car.

Tightening the grip of his left hand he assured himself once again that the mug was with him now, but getting rather low on coffee thanks to the amount that he'd been drinking from it since he'd arrived at the bar to ambush Ben.

"I do wonder how you forgot your mug in the car in the first place," Ben mused with lazy thoughtfulness, knowing full well that Alex was trapped and couldn't escape without looking highly suspicious. _Although at this point I may as well risk it._ He though somberly. "Seeing as how glued it is to your hand on a regular basis."

Alex laughed, eating up time while he thought frantically of a response. "I was just in such a hurry to be in Donnach's place," he said finally with an impish grin that seemed to be showing itself when the topic turned to Donnach, "It just slipped my mind!"

Ben's eyebrows reached the middle of his forehead. "Hurry to be in Donnach's place, eh?" he asked. Alex's eyes widened with the implications in the sentence he'd just spouted and a flush fought against his self-control to spread over his cheeks. A quick darted glance at Donnach showed the Scot seeing the bumble for what it was and smiling good naturedly. Well, Alex hoped that was what the smile meant.

He took another sip from his mug and was dismayed to find that he had to tilt back his head and it rather far in order to receive his nectar. He hoped the bar had good coffee, because none of the regular coffee shops he frequented were in the area and he also doubted Ben would let his free for the risk he would run off to never be seen again.

"New friends are wonderful to have." He corrected the slip up with a cheery grin at Donnach, who raised an eyebrow back at him. "I've been on leave for so long, with nothing to do, that the company was greatly desired."

He stared pointedly at Ben, who shrugged at the not so subtle accusation between the lines. "You brought it on yourself." He refused to accept the major blame for what had ultimately led Alex to this line of questioning.

"It is quite the relief to be able to spend time with another off duty military trained personnel." Donnach interjected then like a breath of fresh air and Alex smiled thankfully at him. The medic was quite understanding, he realized. "I can understand what would prompt him to forget something in the car…although I suppose you'd think the mistake would be realized at some point in the visit."

_I take that back. _Alex launched imaginary missiles at Donnach's head but the SAS medic appeared unfazed by the mental assault.

It seemed the sides of war were changing, because suddenly Alex was the target under fire and found himself nearly cowering under the speculative gazes of the ex-SAS man and the SAS man on leave. _Why must I always act before I think?_ He thought, heart sinking, and attempted to steel himself for the interrogation to come.

To give the pretense of nonchalance he adopted his work poker face and took a casual sip of coffee. _Maybe I should_ _go..._He considered, eyeing the two other men with another sip.

And then he did, quickly before Ben and Donnach had a chance to stop him without looking highly suspicious he slapped his share of the meal on the counter, jumped off the stool, eyed his watch and made apologies and promises that they'd continue the conversation later.

He hightailed it out of the bar and didn't stop breathing naturally until his feet were safely planted on his doorstep and hand on the doorknob. Within the minute Alex had locked the door behind him and made it into the kitchen to start brewing a new pot of coffee. Starting the coffee maker he was suddenly left with a period of nothing to do.

The house was quiet but for the hum of the nectar of the gods machine and the minute creaks and quivers of the house settling and cooling off. Leaning against the kitchen counter Alex let free a deep gust of breath and rested his head on a cabinet hung on the wall behind him, closing his eyes and loosening his shoulders as he moved.

In the peace introspection was only inevitable and Alex was reminded again of the anomaly that had taken place at Donnach's place and tried to come up with reasons that would put no blame on him or raise further questions. Reasons such as 'Donnach's reassuring and relaxing presence' were strictly out of consideration, as was 'being distracted by well built Scot with medical knowledge and an arousing voice'.

Those speculations were burned and replaced by nicer explanations that wouldn't put new friends in awkward places such as 'I just forgot' and 'I hadn't forgotten, I'm just very good at ignoring my own need'. The latter would work best, he _was_ a spy after all and Donnach had brought up the issue before, it was only logical.

_Yes_. Alex decided with a smile and opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling fan above the kitchen table. _I've grown used to lack when I need to be, just because it doesn't appear so in civilization is just because I'm not in spy mode. There's no point to pretending not to be addicted when your life isn't on the line._ Because he most certainly wasn't going to admit, to himself or the Scot and especially not Ben, any feelings of attraction beyond friendship.

Determination set his heart and Alex nodded to himself. He would never admit it. It would only put people in awkward situations. He would stop being so playful with Donnach as well, that would only lead to misconceptions. Moving from the counter to take a seat at the table, Alex began staring at the dark window in his direct line of sight. _Nobody needs to know. Everybody is happy._

For a seasoned spy Alex was quite stupid in many senses.

* * *

><p>Hey there, readers, guess what? This is chapter five and I think we're either getting places or have just reached a very large wall! Yay for obstacles in gay love, right? Haha, anyways.<p>

I think I'll stop apologizing at the end of each chapter because of lateness, because I've decided every time I update now is when I planned to update. I just never told any of you beforehand. (Oh yes, deluding myself to feel better. Taking notes from Alex.)

That and man apologies are probably getting repetitive, so I'll stop the repetition before it gets out of hand. There you go, you're welcome.

Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, everyone who's read and everyone who's subscribed! It's always a huge motivator to know that there _might __actually_ be people who want to read what my brain comes up with. Strange thought, sometimes, but hey I should be thankful not suspicious. So thankful I am. :)

Hope this didn't come too late (Who am I kidding again? Oh, right, me. Haha) and hope you enjoyed!

-Fridge


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